


Perception

by Mosspool13



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Gratuitous Use Of Disguise Self, M/M, Multi, Pining, Pre-Threesome, Relationship Negotiation, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 23:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosspool13/pseuds/Mosspool13
Summary: Jester was far more perceptive than she appeared





	Perception

They are in Caleb's bed, tucked away in his secret room adjacent to the study.

"Cayyyleb?"

"Yes, Jester?"

"What time is it?”

Caleb doesn’t even glance at the window; there would be eternal darkness anyway. “It is just passed seven in the morning.”

Jester sits up, grinning. “Perfect! No one else will be awake… we can have the morning to ourselves!”

Caleb glances at Jester, used to her exuberance so early in the morning. “Do I want to ask what you have in mind?”

Jester wiggles her fingers, her eyes sparkling as magic shivers around her form. Caleb sits up, intrigued, watching the way the magic settles over her like a blanket as she recites a familiar incantation. 

Jester sits up in the circle of sheets pooling about her waist. Her dress is rumpled, the sleeves falling off and her hair is longer--far longer than it should be, waist length and wavy. That said, her grin is as infectious as ever and her eyes twinkle as they always have. "How do I look?" She asks mischievously, grinning and indicating her new, long tendrils of hair.

"Beautiful as ever, Jester." Caleb replies, amused. "Long hair or no." She grins at him, pleased, and crawls close so that she can press a swift kiss to his bare shoulder. Caleb hums, cupping her cheek and letting his hand slide into her hair and down. It passes through the illusion, of course, but the sentiment is still there. He's not used to its length, but he has always liked Jester's hair and the longer it is, the more of it there is for Caleb to appreciate.

He gently tugs her up so he can press kisses to her mouth, to her cheeks and freckles and her button nose.

Jester pulls away with a giggle. "Okay, okay, so you like it. What about if I do..." Her hands flutter and wiggle and her face shifts, the nose gets longer, her freckles disappear, her skin changes from blue to brown, and her hair darkens from deep blue to midnight black. Her eyes shift too, turning green, and she gets a little taller. Caleb leans away, curious as a human woman Caleb does not recognize sits before him, pretty, yes, but not Jester. Not even close. Except for the way her eyes sparkle. "What about this?"

"What is going on in your mind, Jester?" He asks, mouth curving just a little. He's curious, always curious, and Jester's antics are, well, something to be curious about. He's just unsure whether he should be wary or contemplative.

Jester sits up in her new disguise. "We are not doing anything today, and I have lots of spells and I was thinking that we could try something different!"

"Such as changing your appearance?"

"Well I thought that I could change my appearance while we have kinky sex." She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. Caleb sighs.

"Jester..."

She giggles again and her form shifts a third time, her frame elongates and the skin changes color again. Her hair grows even longer, and fur sprouts on her body. Her ears shape and flop and her technicolor coat of pink fur stands out in a familiar, droopy face. Caduceus Clay grins at Caleb, wearing Jester's dress, ruffled in the sheets. "Haven't you ever thought about it, Mr. Caleb?" She says, mimicking Caduceus' low, slow voice. Her accent is too strong to make it work, and her voice too high for it to sound any good. She is no Fjord, and Caleb can only stare at her.

"_Nein_." Caleb says, deadpan. "And I can say with much certainty that Mr. Clay feels the same."

Jester taps her--Caduceus'--lips with her finger daintily. Her movements are all off, the cross-legged pose and fast-blinking eyes, too much movement to really pull off Caduceus, which makes it all the more disconcerting. She also forgot to change her clothes through the change, so her appearance is all the more wild.

"If you are thinking of keeping up this..." he waves his hand, "game, then you will need to shift much more than your face, Jester."

Jester looks down, finally noticing she is still in her rumbled dress and she blinks, "Oh!" She giggles and pulls on her dress, giving herself a once-over. She looks up, blinking her eyes faux-innocently. “If I ran around the house looking like this, what do you think the others would say?”

Caleb snorts at the image. “Varying degrees of incredulous looks and curse words, I imagine. I believe Mr. Clay might not even notice.”

Jester giggles again and she dispels her magic, becoming herself once more. She sidles up to Caleb, perching on his lap and looking up at him with her blue eyes, doe-like and irresistible. Caleb had once told her he was quite fond of her eyes, and found himself unable to resist her when she looked at him—a moment of rare honestly precipitated by their first interaction as a couple, Jester would not let him live it down—she accordingly did whatever she could to bat her eyes or give him imploring looks, or tease him with watching him, and Caleb could not resist. His hand curled around Jester’s waist and he brought her to him, kissing her thoroughly.

Jester laughed into Caleb’s mouth, triumphant and pleased, and Caleb’s stomach swooped with satisfaction. She used her superior strength to push him into the sheets, and he let her, allowing her to straddle him and press herself into him from above. Caleb’s hands strayed from her waist, up her sides and sweeping past her chest, but Caleb paused, confused a moment as his hand brushed upwards, sliding through something distinctly magical.

He pulled away, raising an eyebrow, “Jester, did you disguise self just now to make your breasts bigger?”

Jester pouted. “And? Are you complaining?”

Caleb’s eyes tracked to her chest and looked her over a moment, amused. He is surprised she is willing to use so many of her spells just for this innocent (well, not _innocent_) game of hers. She is usually much more conservative on using her spells.

“I desire you as you are, Jester.” He tells her, because it is the truth. Flat chested, well-endowed, he would have Jester either way.

Jester perked up and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to Caleb’s cheek. “You are too sweet, Cayleb!” Then she bites down hard on his shoulder and Caleb yelps in surprise and shock. When she pulled away, her mouth was curled upwards slyly. “So sweet I could eat you up!”

Caleb groaned and Jester laughed and returned to him. He embraced her, despite her terrible joke.

They kiss, Caleb's hands tangled in Jester's short, blue hair and her lips are just as sweet as she is. He should be the one making the terrible jokes. He presses into her, humming against the sighs that leave her mouth as she presses back, pushing him back down into the mattress and straddling him again. Caleb lets her, eager to go further, hands already straying to the folds of her dress and the zipper at her back. She lifts her hand and wiggles her fingers, but Caleb just barely notices, more concentrated on the pull of her zipper and the soft sensation of her mouth. Then, something shifts. Caleb notices immediately when he feels like his hand is passing through an illusion, familiar with the sensation of magic tingling across his fingers and wrist. He wonders briefly if she has changed more of her proportions, but no, this time is different. Even the press of their lips together feels strange--it's still Jester's mouth, Jester's hair in his other hand, but there is something like a shimmering field around her and when Caleb pulls away, he can see why. 

Fjord stares back at him, dressed in a thin cotton shirt and pants. He looks real, despite the tell-tale flicker of his eyes, and the unfamiliar grin spreading across his mouth. 

His heart thumps, once, despite himself. 

"Jester--" Caleb begins, taken aback, apprehension and real fear curling up his spine. He had thought that--he was sure that he had been--

Fjord’s eyes are mischievously glinting at him. “Don’t you like it?” She says. Caleb’s mouth is dry and his throat is tight with repressed anxiety.

"Jester." He says again, more sternly, a warning. 

Now she looks worried. “Caleb?” Fjord’s face says. “Are you alright?”

“_Nein_. Can you—I would like you to move, please.”

She sits up immediately, pulling away. “I’m sorry, I know we haven’t talked about it but I thought—”

“Have not talked about--? There is nothing to talk about.” Caleb denies, sitting up and scooting away. She has completed her transformation to Fjord in its entirety, wearing his clothes and accentuating his build, but she is no actress, and Caleb can see the Jester behind the illusion, just as he had when she had pretended to be Caduceus. 

Caleb curls in on himself. “Change back, please.”

Jester does so immediately. Her pretty face etched with sorrow. “Caleb, I’m sorry. I thought you would like it.”

“Why would you ever think that?” He had been sure that he had been careful. Ever since Jester had reciprocated his feelings, he had kept his eyes centered on her. How could he not? She was beautiful and all-encompassing. It did not matter what else he wanted when he had her.

“Caleb, it’s okay.”

Caleb says nothing, choosing to close his mouth and look away instead. He feels like he has been stripped bare before her, more than he had been when they had become one for the first time.

Jester touches his hand and Caleb flinches a little. Jester makes a wounded sound. “I’m sorry, Caleb, really, I thought this would be fun, that you would have fun and we could finally talk about it.”

“Talk about what.” He finally manages, flatly, letting the words curdle harsh in his mouth.

She looks sad, and Caleb reads, _pity_, and knows immediately what she is about to say. “Talk about your feelings for Fjord.”

“Jester.” Caleb says, and he makes sure she can see his eyes, because he does not want to hurt her, not her, not anyone, not anymore, he has hurt too many already, and he does not deserve Jester, but he wants to keep her, because he is a selfish, selfish man. “I love you.”

“I know.” She says. “But you love him too.” 

Caleb shrinks even further into himself. Jester approachs him again, sitting next to him but keeping a careful distance between them, “it’s okay, Caleb.”

“It is not okay. You deserve more, Jester Lavorre. You deserve it all.” Caleb said to the bed sheets, unable to look back at her. Jester was the sun, and Caleb was an ant, tiny and inconsequential, and tilting its face towards what little it could reach of that warmth.

“Caleb,” Jester said, insistently, and reached for his chin. He let her, and she pulled his face to hers so she could look into his eyes. “Why do you let me love Fjord, and not allow yourself to love him too?”

Fjord was not--could not want--would not--Caleb had told himself over and over again, and besides, he was in love with Jester. 

He had thought he had hid it better. He must have slipped up somehow.

Caleb was used to loving more than one person. It had been simpler with Eodwulf and Astrid: Astrid had loved him back, Eodwulf had not. It made it all the easier to hide his feelings for his tall friend when he had Astrid’s love. And soon, those feelings had left him, as Astrid’s had with her.

But this, this is more difficult, more complicated, more twisted out of proportion.

Because Jester had loved Fjord first. 

In those early days of the Nein, when Jester had pursued him doggedly at his heels, Fjord had seemed indifferent to her charm, indifferent in a way Caleb had not been. He had fallen for Jester’s liveliness, her warmth and care and how deeply she loved and how deeply she wanted love returned.

Caleb had been terrified. How could someone love him? How could he, a piece of shit, earn Jester Lavorre: the heart of the Mighty Nein? But when Jester had turned her affections from Fjord to him, he had learned to accept her feelings, and accept his own.

Until he’d gone and ruined it and developed feelings for Fjord as well.

Caleb wasn’t sure when it happened, maybe the moments they shared together, the vulnerability expressed between them, the similarities, Fjord’s past and Caleb’s own, the weight of Fjord’s palm in his hand. Something, maybe a thousand somethings, had caused it, and now Caleb was stuck.

It was like Wulf and Astrid all over again, but worse, because Caleb knew that Jester still harbored some affection for their resident half-orc, it never had really gone away, and Caleb had accepted that alongside Jester’s feelings for him. She wouldn’t be Jester if she didn’t love with her whole being.

She hadn’t hidden it from him, when they had consummated their feelings. She had told him that she still had feelings for Fjord, and he had accepted that, because he loved her, and she was Jester, and what little of her he could have, he would take.

And he was a coward, who would take what she was willing to give: what he didn’t deserve.

"Caleb?" Jester prompts, when he doesn't respond. She huffs and leans her head and body back, lounging across the bed. "You are so silly, Caleb." She says, to the ceiling. He inclines his head minutely, conceding to her. "Loving him does not make you love me less."

Caleb knows that, but she doesn't _deserve _that.

She continues on, "Maybe... maybe if its you he'll want to."

Caleb looks up and at her. "What... what are you talking about?"

Her hands fidget, tightening in her dress and the sheets. "You know that a long time ago, before now, before we got together, that I... I told Fjord I loved him and that I wanted to be with him."

Caleb sits up straight. He had not known this. Jester's eyes flit to him and then flit away. "He was super uncomfortable, Cayleb." She says, nose wrinkling and expression morphing into something wistful and a little sad. Caleb wants to wipe the expression from her face, cup her cheek and make sure it never happens again. "He said that his feelings for me were... complicated, and that he did love me but not..." her throat works and Caleb reaches for her hand. She takes it and squeezes, hard, enough he winces a little. "Anyway!" She says brightly, and moves on, "it hurt, but then I fell for you, Caleb, and it doesn't hurt so much anymore and I thought that this was wonderful. We are together and I still love Fjord, but that's impossible but you are possible and amazing and I love you and it was okay,"

She looks at him, raises her other hand and cups his cheek. Caleb closes his eyes and leans into the cool feel of her skin. She always runs cold, and he hot, and the palm of her skin on his always soothes him. Her eyes twinkle. "You are perfect, Caleb." She tells him. "I love you."

"I love you." He whispers back.

She grins. "We are perfect! And I thought everything was great, and then..." she raises her head a little towards him, and lowers her voice, as if she is about to share a secret, "and then I saw your face."

Caleb twitches. Jester goes on, "when you got hurt on our last mission, and you were kinda pale and you couldn't stand up straight and Fjord offered to carry you, I saw your face right before you refused, I saw the way you looked at him for just a moment, the way you _wanted _him." She says it with such longing in her voice and Caleb can see in her eyes how much she yearns for it, the idea that Caleb is in love with Fjord too, that he harbors those feelings, those attractions. "And I saw how he wanted you too." She says and Caleb's world shifts.

"What?"

Jester sits up. "It's true, Caleb! I _saw_ it!"

"Jester." Caleb warns her but she's not listening. Her eyes are etched in passion and in longing. "He wanted you back! I saw it! And Caleb... he makes us so happy." She turns sharply to him. "You can be happy."

"Jester stop it." Caleb bites out and Jester shakes a little, eyes blinking as though waking from a dream. "I _am_ happy. With you, Jester. I have never been happier."

Jester touches Caleb's knee. "No, I know, Caleb, but you can be happier, listen." She leans forward. "If it's you, and you ask him, if you tell him how you feel, he'll say yes." Her eyes are shining. "And you can be even happier!"

"And what about you in this plan, Jester?" Caleb asks pointedly. "Where will you be? Cheering from the sidelines?"

Jester pouts. "Welllll I figure I can have my Caleb days and Fjord can have his Caleb days."

"And what if I want Jester everyday?" 

Jester tugs on her bottom lip with her teeth. "Oh, that is a lot of Jester time."

Caleb nods, turning his nose into the curl of Jester's hair, breathing her in. "_Ja_, it is."

Jester laughs and pushes him away. "Okay, well we can work something out!"

Caleb sighs. "Jester, I will not sacrifice you to have Fjord. I--" he is not worthy enough to sacrifice her for _anything_. He will not give in to his desire for Fjord, not when she has chosen him. He will not do that to her. 

"But Caleb--"

Caleb shakes his head and gently maneuvers her into the bed sheets. He lays his head on her shoulder, curling against her side. She lets him, opening her arms and nuzzling him close. "This is what I want, Jester."

Nothing else matters.

"I guess, Caylebb." She says, drawing out his name and relenting, for now.

But Caleb knows the issue is not put to rest. Jester is aware now of what he has tried desperately to hide from her, and believes that Fjord harbors some sort of reciprocation of those feelings. She will meddle, as is her want.

She cards her fingers through his hair and he begins to doze off to the scent of confections and donuts, but then her fingers scratch lightly in his scalp, drawing him from slumber as she moves suddenly against him. "But what about if I still disguise myself as him and we can have kinky sex?"

Caleb sighs into the folds of her dress and doesn't reply.

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly wanted to write a fic where Jester disguised herself because disguise self during sex? that's kinky, but it became less smut and more angst and pining instead.


End file.
